| | Congress to McCain: You're not helping
McCain agrees to leave DC, debate ObamaCongressional leaders have a message for John McCain: You're not helping.
The Republican presidential candidate's garish attempt to sweep into the Capitol at the 11th hour and take credit for crafting an economic bailout package has coincided with a collapse in negotiations over that $700 billion proposal.
Three days after declaring he would "suspend" his presidential campaign and skip Friday's presidential debate, McCain reversed course and agreed to leave Washington. McCain said he will travel to Oxford, Miss., Friday for his first debate with Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate.
Congress had been functioning just fine for the last five months in which McCain hadn't bothered to show up, and some lawmakers would like to keep it that way.
"The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Friday, referring to McCain. "It's been harmful."
Republican Sen. Bob Corker echoed a similar sentiment earlier in the day during an interview on Fox News. The Tennesseean said the presidential candidate's presence in Washington "adds a tension and distraction that candidly is not healthy at this moment in time."
Reid acknowledged that he had asked McCain to help unify his party behind a bailout package -- although he never asked McCain to return to Washington -- but he accused the Arizona senator of choosing grandstanding over leadership.
"A few days ago, I called on Sen. McCain to take a stand, let us know where he stands on this issue, on this bailout," Reid said. "But all he has done is stand in front of the cameras; we still don't know where he stands on the issue."
Reid and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, unveiled a "discussion draft" of their latest proposal to pump money into the economy in the hope of staving off a collapse.
Lawmakers remain optimistic that a deal on the bailout package will be reached over the weekend. President Bush similarly tried to ease fears in a brief address Friday morning.
"The legislative process is sometimes not pretty," the president said. "But we are going to get a package passed."
Democrats say they won't pass any bailout bill that doesn't include limits on CEO compensation in companies that take the taxpayer bailout and include provisions to ensure the government sees some return on its $700 billion investment.
Reid said Senate Democrats and Republicans had reached a tentative agreement Thursday afternoon and then "guess who came to town, and that fell apart."
Objections from House Republicans also were key in preventing that deal from going forward. Reid accused House Minority Leader John Boehner of not being sufficiently engaged in negotiations and said the GOP should not hold up the bailout to achieve long-sought changes like cuts in the capital gains tax.
"The Republican House has to decide what they want to do," Reid said.
Senator Reid and Senator Dodd speak about bailout package
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast September 25, 2008.
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Sen. Corker speaks to Fox News. This video is from Fox's America's Newsroom, broadcast September 26, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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